Day 66: Familiar Faces, Plastic Playground, Yellow Sugar

Day 66:  Sunday August 10th, 2014.
Grand Rapids, OH to Huron, OH.  83.2 miles.

I woke up with pretty sore quadricep and calf muscles, sore to the touch, and tight.  I stretched for a while, loosening things up a bit.  After 2 weeks off, then 4 consecutive days of riding, some of those days with long distance, and some with headwinds, I was ready for a break.  But, with only about 85 miles to Lake Erie, I couldn't resist riding one more day to get to a place where there's more to explore.  So, I got up and headed less than a mile into downtown Grand Rapids for breakfast.

It was already warm at 9:00 am, and the forecast called for a high of 85 degrees Fahrenheit with increased humidity, a precursor to thunderstorms tomorrow.  In addition, the East and East-Northeast winds that I had been fighting yesterday would continue today, with stronger gusts forecasted.

Riding down the main drag of Grand Rapids looking for a cafe, I noticed a big congregation of bicyclists on the sidewalk.  They were from mostly the Toledo area, and were on a group ride for the day, stopping at the restaurant they were loitering in front of for breakfast.

As I rolled up to them, one of them said, "This is the best place to eat in town."  Questions were fired at me from all diretions amongst the guys in the group.  "You've been plowing through those East winds.", one of them said.  "Yeah, and it doesn't look like it's going to let up anytime soon.", I replied.  They explained that the East winds are very common throughout this area in Spring, but not this time of year.  They suspect that the very cold winter this year, and the resultant cooler lake temperatures, has influenced the cooler-than-usual Summer and extension of Spring-like conditions.  

Then, one of the riders, with a look of contemplation on his face said, "Wait a minute - Weren't you riding East on the Glacial Drumlin Trail near Madison Wisconsin a few weeks ago?"  I was, and confirmed his hunch.  "Holy Cow - We passed you - I knew you looked familiar", he exclaimed.  What an incredible coincidence.  A portion of the riders in the group in front of me did a short tour through Wisconsin, and I passed right by them.  And, here we stood, over 400 miles away from our first brief passing, once again connected, but only for a brief moment in time before they rode off.

  I had a similar coincidence the morning I was going to leave downtown Chicago.  I was in a small cafe in The Loop, having breakfast, when a man came up to me and said, "Nice shirt - I made it".  I looked up at him and recognized his face.  He rode by me on a bicycle in downtown Fargo weeks prior, and at the time gave me directions to a bike shop, "The Great Northern Bicycle Co."  It turns out that he was the owner of that shop.  I was wearing a t-shirt that I had bought at his place.  He told me that Chicago was the furthest place from Fargo that he has ever spotted one of his tees.

Heading inside the cafe after the cyclist group left, I had a great breakfast while working on my blog for a short while.  I sat at a window table with a good view of the old buildings of downtown Grand Rapids.

I noticed a news article framed on the wall of the restaurant.  It was the same view of downtown, only during the major flood of 1959, when the Maumee River overflowed it's banks.

As I made my way out of Grand Rapids, I followed the River for only a mile or two before branching off Eastward towards Bowling Green.

Along the way, a roadside farmer's market stand was an easy distraction from the road and heat.

The fruits and veggies, mostly local, some heirloom, looked delicious.  I bought a large ripe peach for later.

I moved quickly through Bowling Green, and then navigated through several small towns 10 to 15 miles apart, each with populations of 1000 to 6000 people.  In Gibsonburg (pop. 2,408), I passed by a convenience store with a drive through.  I stopped to watch as cars drove literally into the store to shop from the comfort of the seat of their car.

Next up was Fremont (pop. 16,734).  As I rode through the old residential neighborhood, massive oak trees loomed overhead, with old restored Victorian, Craftsman, and Colonial homes all around.

My progress was slow through this neighborhood as I found myself stopping frequently to take pictures of the homes.

"Ok, that's enough, I need to move on now.", I would tell myself.  Then, I'd come upon another beauty.  "Ok, just one more."

In town, I found the beginning of the North Coast Inland bike trail.  A paved path, I would follow this for 9 miles into the town of Clyde, before branching off to the Northeast.

Arriving in Clyde (pop. 6,325), I exited the bike trail and came upon the Whirlpool plant.

It was massive, semmingly the size of a small town itself, spanning multiple blocks, with it's own water tower.  I recalled from my days of selling refrigerators, washers, and dryers at Sears, that Whirlpool had a plant in Ohio, while their main operations were in Canada.  

I then navigated through the downtown area of Clyde, complete with a fountain, brick buildings, and colorful hanging flower pots.

On the East side of Clyde, a major plastic bottle recycling facility, Evergreen Plastics, sat with gargantuan bundles of crushed plastic bottles ready for meltdown.  It was hard to comprehend not only the massive size of each bundle, but the incredible number of bundles, some stacked 10 high, taking up an area comparable to several football fields.

From Clyde, I turned the page of my map to see the last 24 miles to Huron.  I was anxious to arrive at my destination, looking forward to a day of rest, and to foregoing the soybean/corn scenery for some water views.

About 8 miles further, I came to a stop as a train loaded with coal crossed my path.  I could see on my map that it was headed straight for Sandusky on the shore of Erie.  Maybe from there, it is loaded onto barges, used in a coal fired power plant on the shore, or transported by rail across to Canada.  I wasn't sure.  But, the cars were loaded to the brim and beyond.

As I reached the crossing, I looked to my left to see a cloud of black coal soot being blown off the train by the East winds.  I tried to hold my breath until the train passed and I crossed over the tracks.

I was headed for the Huron River Valley Resort campground, the closest camping option to the town of Huron, about 3.5 miles out of town alongside the Huron River.  About two miles from reaching the destination, I came upon "Doug's Tomato Stand", featuring organic tomatoes grown in the fields right behind the roadside stop.

I decided to check it out, and I'm glad I did.  I bought a tub of the Yellow Sugar organic tomatoes.  They were outstanding, sweet, and I was eating them like one would eat popcorn.

Arriving at the campground exhausted, I setup my tent, took a cool shower, and then made dinner back in my tent.  My culinary creation for the evening: almond butter sandwiches with blueberries, bananas, local honey, and crushed corn chips. Different, but delicious!

Looking forward to my planned day off tomorrow, I checked the forecast before going to bed.  Yikes!  Looks like it's going to rain, with thunderstorms likely.